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On Tuesday, January 5, 1988, I experienced something truly tragic, although it wasn't my tragedy. <===================================== Grade 1. I knew this kid named Greg that I hated; he was in my class, as he had been in kindergarten the year before. I was an extremely good kid when I was 6. I would do my work happily (if only I could do that now!) and be quiet, happily. He was the type to mangle the words to the national anthem (why do popular songs have "lyrics", but anthems only have "words"?) to some perverted or disgusting thing. He would do the same to the Lord's Prayer, as we were required to say it back then. I thought he was Trouble. Greg had an older brother two years older than us called Trevor. I didn't think much of him, either. He would do questionable things, or at least they were questionable in my six-year-old view. He was always very nice to me though. I never much trusted him anyway. John Lennon died when I was six. I remember that day well. That was December 8, 1980. I had heard about "The Beatles" and "John Lennon" from TV and overhearing adults talking. John Lennon made music. Everyone loved him. He must be the greatest musician ever, not that it really mattered to me. But then he died. The world seemed to slow right down. All the teachers in the school seemed to move in slow-motion; they didn't respond as quickly to us kids; they walked around as though they had all lost something. Later that day I found out that someone shot John Lennon for no reason. There seemed to be this dark cloud hovering around everyone. It was strange. =====================================> I skipped grade three, so I was now free of the two brothers. One was now a year behind and the other was safely a year ahead. I never had to see much of either one. By 1988, Greg was out of my life completely (well, until September) and I just had to deal with Trevor once in a while in the halls. No big deal, he'd say hello, act all chummy and leave. I couldn't shake the feeling that he was Trouble. But I had no idea what kind of trouble he would get into. January 5, 1988 was the second day back from Christmas holidays. It was just some ordinary day. Home Form, first class, break, second class, lunch, third class, break, fourth class...But there was something different. Remember how in high school every so often you would see some girl crying in the hallway with her friend because she got dumped, or because some "bitch" had humiliated her? I used to say, "Oh, look, another crisis!" and keep walking. So I saw some girl having a crisis, or so I thought. I turned the corner and saw another girl "in crisis". "That's really weird, two in one day, " I thought. But then I noticed the guys. They were walking around as though someone had sucked out their brains. They didn't know what to do. They had lost something. So were many of the girls. It seemed so dark in the school all of a sudden. There were more girls in crisis. More brainless boys. And strangely enough, the staff was nowhere to be seen. At least I don't recall them at all. A Grade 13 student named Shawn (who knew my sister, therefore knew me) came up to me and starting talking. I asked him if he knew what was going on. "Didn't you hear? Trevor Close died!" Obviously I didn't believe him. I had seen Trevor that morning. "No, he died at lunch across the street. Victoria Park." It dawned on me that this must be true. This was too much like December 8, 1980. I found out later that he and his friends liked to skip class sometimes and take off to sniff aerosol gas in a bag. Trevor's heart stopped at around 1 pm that day, not 100 metres from the school. Not 300 metres from a hospital. His friends thought that he was joking when he collapsed. I have no idea how long it was before they realized that he was dead or dying. I could only hope for their sake that Trevor was dead before he hit the ground, and that they didn't have a chance in saving him. There were only two more instances where I was on the periphery of death like that, but the other two instances never really affected me. It was only in writing this that I could actually compare the death of the great John Lennon to the death of lowly Trevor Close. Strangely enough (or should I say, typically enough?) nothing really changed. Sniffing these things was pretty popular back then, and it never really stopped until the fad ended a few months later. =====================================> Three years later I had a dream about him. He was there in the school cafeteria standing there smiling at me. No one else saw him. Then he turned and walked away. He really seemed to radiate peace and tranquility. There was this girl, Angie, who interpreted the dream as Trevor trying to tell me that he was fine. But why would he appear to me? I never really liked him all that much. I still don't know what that dream was about. =====================================> Trevor Close would have been thirty years old now. 0 scrawls at the end of this hallThe look: The feel: The taste: ________________________ |
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